Back End Apps with Webpack: Part I - <AUTHOR> http://jlongster.com/Backend-Apps-with-Webpack--Part-I <comment><USER2> _> For example, hot module replacement allows you to change a module and update the existing instance live. This is the juice within react-hot-loader and this is the kind of stuff we need to be building. You'll never look back after experiencing this._

I second this. (Disclaimer: I wrote React Hot Loader.)

Webpack's live reloading system is not browser-specific, does not depend on attaching debuggers or doing anything else invasive.

All it does is represent module cache as (id) -> (function) map and give you the tools to "handle" module updates, as if modules were Observables and you subscribed to "new versions" of them. If update is unhandled, it bubbles.

This is what allows Hot Module Replacement to work for React components, CSS and Markdown files, and even classes on backend.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm trying to boil this down to an easily-digestable list of benefits for server-side development, since I'm completely unfamiliar with webpack. So far I have this:

        * Transpiles code that runs in node, not just code that runs in browsers.
        * Hot-reloads modules, so I don't have to restart my server a lot.
        * Does source maps, presumably which are exposed via tools like node-debug.

Anything else?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I don't know why the title was changed to "back end", that's the worst way to say it. If you don't like "backend", at least use "back-end".

<comment><USER4> back end == node/io.js ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I guess I'd like to know more about the benefits of this approach. Packaging up a single js file seems unnecessary when you're running on the server.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair question. This post is targeted to people who love webpack on the frontend but don't use it on the backend, and I don't really explain the benefits of webpack in general.

Packaging all files into a single one is a side effect that we don't really care about. If you want to build your app with babeljs, you need to compile all your backend files. Who cares what the output is, if it's multiple files or a single file? As long as it's semantically the same (meaning even __dirname and friends work appropriately), it doesn't matter.

But what you get is really powerful build system (much better than hacking one together with gulp). Just look how small my config is, and now you can add babel as a loader for JS files and it just works. And you get to use the exact same infrastructure for the frontend.

<comment><USER6> So the purpose here is to make it easier to use preprocessors on the backend? Hasn't this been common for a long time? What does webpack do here exactly?

<comment><AUTHOR> A good solution hasn't been common. Try to use babel with gulp. You have to just glob a bunch of files and hope you've covered all your dependencies. It becomes a mess once you get into more complicated stuff.

Webpack also handles sourcemaps flawlessly, and you get tons of other stuff like [http://webpack.github.io/docs/hot-module- replacement.html](http://webpack.github.io/docs/hot-module-replacement.html).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm also trying to wrap my brain around what webpack _is_ , since I've been thus far conditioned to think of the build runner (e.g. gulp) and the bundle maker (e.g. browserify) as being separate.

The article seems to be saying this, but am I correct to come away thinking of webpack as a "module-aware build runner" that replaces both gulp and browserify (for example)?

<comment><USER7> It's primarily a bundle maker a la browserify. The main difference is that it stretches the definition of module beyond just javascript. It can seem like a build system because you can set up rules to run a particular filter on a matching set of files. An example: run files ending with .sass through sassc. The difference is that webpack always starts at an entry point and only walks the dependency graph. If you want to include a sass file, you need to `require('foo.sass')` (without assigning it to anything) from your foo.js. It will then inline the resulting CSS into the single output bundle.js file and you'll have to split out the CSS with another plugin if you want it in a different file.

If you're just using grunt/gulp to build assets then using webpack will save you effort/maintenance but if you also need to copy files around, ping servers, kick of CI, or some other side effect then you'll need some shell script or build runner in addition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been playing with this a for a few months now. Thanks to webpack / react starter ([https://github.com/webpack/react- starter](https://github.com/webpack/react-starter)), you get that for free (with server-side rendering of your apps).

What I'd like to see is for webpack to add features from Pants like self- bootstrapping executables (PEX) or run tests based on which part of the code was affected by a commit. For the executable part, I guess Docker kind of solve that issue. See [http://pantsbuild.github.io/](http://pantsbuild.github.io/) for more info

To be continued :)

</comment><comment><USER9> Webpack is pretty nice, but it feels so 2014.

In 2015, we have ES6 modules now. Instead of define/require, we have import/export and it is standards based now, which is nice.

For systems that do not support ES6 syntax directly, this is provided today with tools like SystemJS [1] and jspm [2]. SystemJS is great because it supports all of the module formats for backwards compatibility. jspm is great because it doesn't matter where you grab your dependencies from (npm/github/bower/etc).

I agree with the authors comment about gulpfiles being hacky and not very DRY (don't repeat yourself). That said, his examples felt very hacked together as well, there is too much programming in there. Do I copy that build file across every new project I create?

gulpfiles are great because they provide extra functionality that is missing, like only re-transpiling files that change. For large projects this can really be a time saver. webpack has that by running a separate server process, complicated! Projects like gulp-helpers [3] try to bring a tiny bit of sanity and re-usability to gulpfiles by making things a bit more DRY and configuration based. It is just an example of one way to do things, but hopefully you see my point.

[1] [https://github.com/systemjs/systemjs](https://github.com/systemjs/systemjs) [2] [http://jspm.io/](http://jspm.io/) [3] [https://github.com/lookfirst/gulp- helpers](https://github.com/lookfirst/gulp-helpers)

<comment><AUTHOR> The syntax for specifying dependencies is irrelevant -- webpack aims to support all of them, and as far as I know has experimental ES6 import/export support. I'm definitely going to transition to ES6 modules soon.

The infrastructure is the important piece, not the module syntax. Webpack provides this infrastructure, and it's easy to provide it for ES6 modules as well.

For example: how do I hot reload modules? How do I eval code inside a module? Webpack allows you to do all of this, and is more advanced than anything out there. SystemJS and jspm are nice but I still find webpack to support way more features.

What do you mean "hacked together"? Look at how small my config is! Do you know how much you get from that small config? The only thing hacky is the `node_modules` hack, and as far as I know, you'd have to do something similar with anything else (I don't see anyone using SystemJS/jspm on the backend).

Also, re-transpiling files that change? Just fire up the watcher (`webpack --watch`) and webpack automatically does this...

<comment><USER9> I know your blog post is only part 1, but your example doesn't show hot module reloading. Adding that will complicate your build file even more.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't know what you are complaining about. Build systems are complex. These config files are relatively straight-forward. You tell it where to start, where to output, to use sourcemaps, and give it a few plugins. It can't get much simpler.

For hot module replacement, sure, it gets a little more complex. You add another plugin and another entry point, that's all.

<comment><USER9> You're sounding really defensive. I find it entertaining that in one sentence you say 'Build systems are complex' and in another 'It can't get much simpler.'

I disagree that build systems need to be complex. They get complex because people try to invent too many different ways of doing things instead of working towards standards. webpack is a prime example of that.

I'd love to see a full demo seed example of your ideal build system. Something that includes hot code swapping and even more importantly, unit testing.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't feel defensive, honestly build systems are boring to me so I'm not that passionate about it. What I meant was that its simple relative to what it could be.

Yes, build systems are complex, because people need features, even if you personally don't need them. Webpack doesn't offer many ways to do the same thing; it just simply has a lot of features. Whenever we get enough tooling around ES6 modules to match it (or come close), I'll gladly switch.

You'll see a fuller example later. I'd love to see a matching set up using systemjs/jspm. You could convince me to switch.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm using webpack with iojs for an isomorphic react app, why don't you just add a regexp to ignore all non-relative modules?

I use the following regexp: /^[a-z\\-0-9]+$/

Any reason to get the full module list over just using this regexp?

<comment><AUTHOR> It feels hackier, and there is a downside: you can't alias non-relative modules because they are simply ignored. I've run into situations where I needed to alias something in node_modules because we preprocessed it and put it somewhere else.

But that works too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> OT: anyone can teach what this construct is useful for? ['.bin'].indexOf(x) === -1

Same as '.bin' === x?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point, I probably should just use that here, but in my project the array actually has a few more elements. I do this because there are a few modules I don't want to ignore for various reasons.

<comment><USER11> oh right... I thought I will learn something new :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Webpack is awesome but I prefer gulp with babeljs and browserify.

</comment><comment><USER13> Why would you want to combine JS files from the back-end?</comment>


Oracle euthanizes Solaris 12, expunging it from roadmap - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/01/oracle-sort-of-confirms-demise-of-solaris-12-effort/ <comment><USER2> In some form and fashion parts of Solaris and its concepts will live on in FreeBSD and Linux, namely ZFS, zones/containers, Dtrace and SMF.

I hope that SPARC itself can live on after Solaris itself tend to go hand in hand though...

<comment><USER3> Don't forget illumos, which forked from OpenSolaris.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, it's commit history seems reasonable and growing (?) over time:

[https://github.com/illumos/illumos- gate/graphs/contributors](https://github.com/illumos/illumos- gate/graphs/contributors)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sad news — Solaris really was great once.

Personally, I think it started to go to hell when it adopted XML for loads of stuff, but that's just my own bias showing.

<comment><USER6> I think Solaris lost because of the Linux juggernaut, not because of any particular technical decision at Sun. Free, Open Source, and massively popular, Linux has slaughtered almost everything in its path on the server (and now, on mobile, too). Solaris was far superior in the early days of Linux, everyone would agree, but Linux got better faster than Sun was able to address all of the reasons people were choosing Linux: Cost, hardware flexibility (and cheap hardware), nicer userland (every Solaris box I ever inherited the administration of already had the GNU tools on it, because they were just better), incredibly enthusiastic user base (Linux and OSS had a religious zeal that commercial vendors could never match), and it was Good Enough even early on to start making inroads into Solaris' home turf.

I suspect XML had an imperceptible effect on Solaris usage. They generally had tools for most of the stuff that went XML; you didn't have to edit it directly. Sure, XML is ugly, but it aint a dealbreaker for most people, especially if there are tools for managing it.

<comment><USER4> Sun going back on promises about x86 in the earlier days didn't help.

I used to do Solaris SysAdmin stuff, and was a very strong advocate for it even on x86. Sun made guarantees/assurances that it'd be available for free download for x86.

Some months later (did someone look at the download bandwidth costs? ;>), they completely reneged on that and stopped allowing people to download x86.

That was (literally) the last day I did any kind of advocacy for Sun or Solaris. After that it was FreeBSD and Linux, and "fuck Sun". ;)

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I remember that change. I had a couple of Sun SPARC boxes at a clients office, and had an installation of Solaris x86 at my house on a spare box, just so I could stay familiar with the system and try things in a non- production environment. It was an unpleasant surprise when they pulled the free x86 version. But, I doubt it was catastrophic for Sun; I also doubt bandwidth was a major concern for them, though I'm not confident about why they pulled the x86 free version.

My recollection of events and post-mortems from people within Sun about that decision and other decisions surrounding x86 Solaris was that there was a battle going on within Sun about what the future of Sun looked like (which happens when a ship is sinking as Sun was). There were those who wanted to double down on hardware, because it had always been their bread-and-butter and was still their primary profit source. Putting Solaris on x86, as with putting Mac OS on Mac clones, was cannibalizing their own hardware sales. Dell could push out high quality x86 servers for half the price of Sun, and if someone could put Solaris x86 on it, there wasn't much reason for companies to spend the extra money for a Sun box (so the thinking went for the folks who were in the "bet on hardware" camp at Sun). The other camp wanted to tackle Linux on its on turf, and pushed for x86 support, free, and eventually open source. The path to profits among that camp were a little less clear than the champions of hardware, but they did have some successes eventually in getting Solaris open sourced (but too late, as we all now know).

I dunno. By the time Solaris was Open Source, Linux was a better system for most users, even pretty big users. And, then there was no entry point for Sun into any company that had left behind Solaris on SPARC for Linux on x86. They had no ties to SPARC, anymore, and no ties to Solaris. So, nothing left to leverage for service revenue or anything else.

The same battle played out at several other UNIX workstation vendors. Sun was just the last one standing. SGI went whole-hog for Windows NT, trying to keep their hardware business afloat (and failed, going through a couple of acquisitions after the fact, and now they're what was formerly Rackable). I don't know what Sun could have done to survive fighting a war on two fronts, with Windows on the enterprise desktop/workstation side, and Linux on the server side. They made it longer than most of their competitors in the space, so maybe they made the right decisions but the innovator's dilemma just didn't leave them a lot of options short of shrinking the company and changing its focus and soul massively.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


WeWork Is Cutting About 7% of Staff - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-03/wework-is-cutting-about-7-of-staff <comment><USER2> I'm surprised most of the comments here are on the merits of shared workspaces instead of the potential overstaffing of WeWork. They have opened a couple of campuses in Denver in the last couple of months, and i was surprised to see about a 2:1 company to WeWork staff ratio. I won't pretend to know the list of the staff's responsibilities, but i can say that often times they appear to be hanging out in the general area chatting.

As a tenant that lack of things to do is great for me. It means they can be attentive to our needs when they arise. For WeWork, i suspect it is indicative of overstaffing campuses.

<comment><USER3> That is approximately the impression I have of the staff in the West Loop office as well. The place feels overstaffed.

<comment><USER4> I have visited We Work after hours for meet ups but never during the day. Could someone describe what the staff does or what they should do? Isn't it substantially a real estate company, so is it all leasing/sales plus some facilities work?

<comment><USER3> At West Loop, there are two front desks, each staffed by 1-2 people; one at reception, one on the second floor, which I assume is there for member services? Then there are 3-4 at-large workers in black WeWork t-shirts taking out trash, delivering mail? No, wait, no they don't deliver anything. I think they just take out the trash.

Then there's a night crew that comes in and cleans the building.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm a member--through the company I work for--at the WeWork on Dupont Circle in Washington DC. I've been in a lot of coworking spaces over the years and this is certainly the largest so far. My 2nd day at work I got lost trying to remember how to get back to our 6-person office. And that's just one floor, there is a whole other floor.

There are a LOT of people working there. What's really surprising to see is how many of them are non-profits. The company I work for can swing it because we are a very profitable consulting company. But I don't get how the non-profs do it.

And there are always at least three people behind the reception desk. I don't ever see anyone actually using the reception desk, but there are three people manning it just in case. I did a loop around the halls and found no less than 4 custodians working at the same time. It's not like there is anything dirty going on. Everyone is working with computers.

I mean, there's free beer in the kitchen. How can this not be expensive? My CEO told me what he was paying for rent not too long ago. It was ludicrous. We could rent a warehouse in the city I actually live (Alexandria) and have 10 times as much room, and still have enough left over to renovate and make the warehouse into a "livable" office space.

<comment><USER6> Non-profits still bring in revenue. If they do well, they may actually turn a profit. They simply cannot distribute said profits to shareholders. Charitable giving was around $350B in 2015.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I guess I don't understand why any startup would pay 300-500/per desk. While I'm building I look to cut all expenses across the board and leave only the bare minimum required to function and create effectively.

Can someone give an anecdote on when a shared workspace like this was beneficial to their startup's growth?

<comment><USER8> I've used a coworking space in Tokyo for approximately 2 years, including my entire tenure at Starfighter. It costs approximately $350 per month. A++ would use a coworking space again. I have visited the WeWork office that Erin and Thomas work out of in Chicago, and it is better equipped than my office and has a variety of features which make it better for doing the kind of work that I'm routinely doing, including a) vastly more space per person, so that other people's conversations don't intrude into focused productivity time and b) closed offices with decent acoustics for calls.

Previously I did substantially all of my work from either my apartment or from cafes. Offices are better than apartments: you can bracket all time spent in them as "work" and then _go home_ from work. Offices are better than cafes: it is expected that you will be working at an office, and you don't have to play a constant am-I-paying-enough-to-keep-my-table game with the cafe. Relevantly for Tokyo cafes, offices (even cramped offices) are substantially more spacious per seat than cafes are, have much better power/Internet situations, and often include printers and fax machines, for when you need a printer and/or fax machine.

<comment><USER9> What's your coworking spot of choice in tko?

<comment><USER8> This is, owing to some of the social peculiarities of work here, a "feel free to ask me privately" question. My email is trivially discoverable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> We were a bootstrapped startup for 4 years and profitable. Towards the end of our 4th year our land lord wanted to increase our rent by 20% or have us sign a 2 year lease. We were also in the process of discussing a possible acquisition with several companies and so a month to month lease in a brand new building in SF was the easiest solution. It also didn't hurt when the companies came to visit us to see us in such a nice space (they kept the office).

Is it over priced? Yes. Is it worth the flexibility for most startups, without question. +20 people i'd look elsewhere.

</comment><comment><USER11> This company's valuation makes no sense to me. The brand is strong in NYC, sure. But really.

<comment><USER12> If they could deliver this at a larger scale and be able to reduce their prices it might make a little more sense. You can get an entire office for the price of a desk.

WeWork Walnut St. Desk[0] - $450

Allegheny Ave Office[1] - $450

[0][https://www.wework.com/locations/philadelphia](https://www.wework.com/locations/philadelphia)

[1][https://philadelphia.craigslist.org/off/5595848731.html](https://philadelphia.craigslist.org/off/5595848731.html)

<comment><USER13> I don't know the costs for an office -- but WeWork provides the staff, internet, electricity, coffee, etc.

<comment><USER12> Certainly they provide a service. I guess they are the 'Hotel' of office space rentals and I'm thinking there might a huge market for the 'Motel' version at a lower price point. I bought a house to have an office because having that office rent cost makes a lot of projects I want to do not viable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The WeWork spaces are nice, but when I've visited companies there it seemed WeWork was struggling to fill the spaces. This news would seem to go along with that observation.

</comment><comment><USER15> Cutting 7% staff out of 1000 ...

But then it goes on and says

"WeWork said it hired 175 people in May and expects to add about 500 employees by the end of the year. The company said it expects to lift the pause on hiring as soon as next week."

What kind of information should I synthesize from this ? Is it bad is it good or is it both at the same time ?

In fact, why did I just waste x minutes of my life reading this piece of malreported doublethink-provoking article ?

My prayers go to the ad blockers ..

<comment><USER16> I mean, if WeWork is both expanding into new offices and realizing their current offices are grossly overstaffed, it's completely reasonable to be both hiring a lot and firing a lot. The pause could just be a breather to see if the new staffing model makes sense. Office staff isn't generally fungible between cities or even locations within a city sometimes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> tldr

The company said it expects to lift the pause on hiring as soon as next week.

"WeWork's growth and expansion continues to accelerate and we expect to add hundreds of employees between now and the end of the year," a company spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail. "Recent employee actions were part of the company's talent review process to ensure that we have the right teams in place that align with the company's priorities."

</comment><comment><USER18> Why would I pay hundreds of dollars to work in a noisy public environment when I could do that for free at a coffee shop? Presumably you're paying for the social aspect of like minds or something. As a freelance IT consultant in NYC the value proposition felt very weak. If someone had a $400/mo private micro office with a desk and a window I'd be on that like white on rice.

</comment><comment><USER19> The typical Regus office has only 3 to 6 employees. So WeWork's biggest established incumbent rival is far more efficient.

</comment><comment><USER20> I got a WeWork tour a while back, and it seemed quite interesting, being not only what it says on the tin, a coworking space, but also a nice location to meet interesting people.

I suppose this is as good of a place to ask as any, are there any good coworking spaces in South Bay, preferably close to Cupertino?

</comment><comment><USER21> Is beer decent?

<comment><USER22> no almost always kicked

<comment><USER21> Oh well :( will need to look for alternative options

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> jeez this article and the washington post article on hiring being in a 6 yr low is really freaking me out. I'm currently in a coding boot camp while working as a waiter parttime. should I be worried?

<comment><USER24> You're totally screwed. Coding boot camps are for suckers. You won't be able to compete against the "real programmers." They'll dominate you so hard that your puppy will feel it.

<comment><USER23> thanks for the real talk. what should I enroll in?

<comment><USER25> In case it wasn't clear, the comment you're replying to is trolling and you should ignore it.

You'll be fine. There's still a good bit of demand for junior programmers, and there are no signs of that going away anytime soon. If you're in a top-tier bootcamp and you do well in it, you will come out ready to take junior positions, roughly comparable to a new CS grad minus their internships (which do give them an advantage). Just don't expect a $105K base salary at your first job - some bootcamps set unrealistic expectations to sell you on the program.

Keep working on the bootcamp, write some open-source code on the side, focus as hard as you can at getting better. It'll work out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If only there was a location more convenient to the Mission =\

</comment><comment><USER26> The title of the article ironically reminds me

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/80/Labour_Isnt_W...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/80/Labour_Isnt_Working.jpg)

<comment><USER27> "The work force is disgusted downs tools and walks

Innocence is injured experience just talks

Everyone seeks damages and everyone agrees

That these are 'classic symptoms of a monetary squeeze'

On ITV and BBC they talk about the curse

Philosophy is useless theology is worse

History boils over there's an economics freeze

Sociologists invent words that mean 'Industrial Disease'"

\- Dire Straits, "Industrial Disease".

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I just really don't like the name of the company.

WeWork sounds so much like WeComply, or WeReEnslaved, or perhaps WeHaveNoSpine.

I'd much rather dwell 8 hours a day in a place run by a company called CompulsoryDungeon or ItinerantWarden or WeSquat or WeDetain or WeSlum. At least to dispose of the facade that people are always thinking happy thoughts about their employment situation.

</comment><comment><USER29> Not a fan of the ad block detection. I'm probably not going to click on bloomberg links any more. I already stopped clicking fortune links. I'd appreciate if there was a weight against sites that used that personally.

<comment> tuna-piano How should the author of this article be compensated for writing it- if not through ads?

<comment><USER30> Did the article need to be written? Did the article need to be written by a human?

Advertising puts an upper limit on the value of content it's possible for you (or anyone) to see. With advertising, you are never shown content that is more valuable than the ads you're being sold to.

Other payment models allow you to buy more expensive content than your time is worth to advertisers.

Hence why very expensive content (like popular feature-length movies) are rarely paid entirely by advertising. Even with hundreds of product placements and an expensive ticket, movie theatres still have to overcharge for concessions to pay for the movie.</comment></comment></comment>


The world faces an air pollution 'pandemic' - <AUTHOR> https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-03/esoc-twf022720.php <comment><USER2> For an article of such importance, to botch the visualisations so badly, to the point of being unreadable, is absurd. Can they not afford to get a designer or data viz person to spend a day and put the data in a decent choropleth map so we can actually see the maps clearly?

</comment><comment><USER3> > Figure I Annual years of life lost from air pollution.

They didn't compensate for population density?

</comment><comment><USER4> None of this matters. It's CO2 we should be worried about!!! That mostly harmless gas beneficial for plants is where the real pollution is, not those sulfur and nitrous oxides and other words too long for the average climate religion acolyte to remember! Carbon budget is a thing!!!</comment>


Private tweets make your mention private - <AUTHOR>

URL : https://pvttwt.com
Private tweets are messages that can only be viewed by the people you mentioned
How does Private Tweets work? https://pvttwt.com/privacy
Why I use this site ? Because not all people in Twitter you know, and you can not get their mail. When there is a famous person, and you want to send him a private message, what do you do? Are you should follow everyone they follow you until they send you or you send him a private message? You can write a long letter in Twitter. You can not attach a file in Twitter If the message does not want to be seen by anyone and you can not put it in public. Private tweets will help you to do that. <comment><USER2> Are you not worried about twitter complaining of trademark infringement like they did with TwitPic?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, I do not feel any anxiety about it</comment></comment>


Learn Enough Command Line to Be Dangerous Ebooks - <AUTHOR> http://news.railstutorial.org/learn-enough-command-line-ebooks/ <comment><AUTHOR> I'm linking this news post mainly because it offers a 50% launch discount, but you can find the completed _Learn Enough Command Line to Be Dangerous_ tutorial here:

[http://learnenough.com/command-line](http://learnenough.com/command-line)

Thanks to HN for the previous discussion ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10245033](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10245033)), which led to several significant improvements in the text.</comment>


What is a framework? - <AUTHOR> http://andrzejonsoftware.blogspot.com/2012/12/what-is-framework.html

<comment><USER2> I think the basic difference between library and framework is that if you use framework it's responsible for bootstrap of your application, and library does not.

But also framework drives structure of result codebase - filenames convention, directory structure, maybe way you implement your features.

</comment><comment><USER3> To me framework is a set of libraries, glued together with some infrastructure code. Framework provides some conventions that speed up most common tasks.

It may be possible to use framework as a library, though there is no or small benefit.

<comment><AUTHOR> "framework is a set of libraries, glued together with some infrastructure code"

That sounds a bit too generic. There are possibly some libraries that group other libraries, but are not really a framework.</comment></comment>


$201,000 Phone Bill - <AUTHOR> http://consumerist.com/2011/10/t-mobile-customer-runs-up-201000-phone-bill.html

<comment><USER2> original story (<http://www.wsvn.com/features/articles/helpmehoward/MI93365/>)

summary: Woman buys phone for deaf / mute brother, puts him on her plan, he goes to Canada (from US) for two weeks and leaves data roaming on. Phone co claim to have sent warning texts; have cut bill to $2,500 with 6 months to pay.</comment>


Unwitting Distributed Genetic Programming via AJAX - <AUTHOR> http://hampshire.edu/lspector/unwitting-gecco-2007/

<comment><USER2> Mininova tried this [1] and got something like ~1000 MIPS out of it. That was using Firefox 1.5 though, running their IPS counter on Chromium dev on a modern Core2 duo gives me 71428571 IPS, more than a 30x improvement over the per-user numbers they cite.

Back of the envelope math: ceteris paribus that would put a 3-million pageviews/day somewhere along the lines of a dual-Itanium box today. Facebook pushes ~500 million pageviews so has access to ~300 CPUs worth of computing power in the form of its visitors' javascript engines (~5,600,000 MIPS).

[1] [http://blog.mininova.org/articles/2005/11/17/mininova-the- ja...](http://blog.mininova.org/articles/2005/11/17/mininova-the-javascript- cluster/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I detest anyone who would try to sap my spare computing resources without first informing me. With consent and full disclosure, however, I would likely participate in such a system.

<comment><USER4> _I detest anyone who would try to sap my spare computing resources without first informing me._

So adopt the maxim: People who steal my computing resources aren't entitled to correct results. :)

<comment><USER3> My thoughts exactly :). I treat marketing surveys and loyalty card application forms similarly, unless I really really like the company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've always thought this sort of thing would make for an interesting way for publishers of websites to monetize their traffic. Instead of showing ads, a publisher could make it so each page view meant a small unit of work was completed.

A company could do business like an ad network, but instead of matching advertisers with publishers and serving ads, it would match groups needing computing resources with publishers and handle everything involved with serving out units of work and collecting the results.

</comment><comment><USER6> I like the idea, although it limits the kind of "fitness evaluations" that one can carry out.

For instance, you aren't going to be compiling and running c-programs client side... <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1084015></comment>


Can Amateurs Solve P=NP? - <AUTHOR> http://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2010/07/01/can-amateurs-solve-pnp/ <comment><USER2> Part of the problem is demonstrated by the comments by "Craig" to this item. He knows quite a bit, and writes well, but he seems to be wrong in a fundamental way. Further, he can't see why, and so keeps pressing his point.

If P=NP then it's plausible that a gifted, enthusiastic and persistent amateur can prove it, although they will most likely then have a difficult time convincing the establishment.

If P!=NP then it seems very unlikely to me that an amateur will prove it, and be able to demonstrate to the establishment that they have done so. Even though it's the result most mathematician's expect, a proof is going to be difficult. Not knowing the standard language for talking about these things (which will almost certainly be the case of an amateur who proves it) will be an insuperable barrier.

There are a lot of results floating around already showing that certain "obvious" approaches won't work. It may be that not knowing those results is a prerequisite for solving the problem, because then your mind isn't predisposed to think in a certain way. On the other hand, not knowing those results makes it likely those approaches will be used.

I don't think an amateur will solve P?=NP.

EDIT: changed some clumsy wording.</comment>


Software patent (designing drill bits) approved in UK - <AUTHOR> http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2011/10/not-faking-it-h-h-halliburton-gets.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Some extracts from the judgement to summarise what happened (sorry it's still long, but the judgement is 22 pages). Short comments in line, overall comments below.

\----

23\. This case is by no means unique as an example of a computer implemented invention in which the word "computer" is conspicuous by its absence from the patent claims. I am quite certain that one reason for this is a desire by applicants to try and play down the fact that their inventions are really based almost entirely on computer software. It fools no-one and in some cases makes things more complicated than they need to be.

\-----

Patents Act: s1(2) It is hereby declared that the following (among other things) are not inventions for the purposes of this Act, that is to say, anything which consists of— [...] (c) a scheme, rule or method for performing a mental act, playing a game, or doing business, or a program for a computer; (d) the presentation of information; but the foregoing provision shall prevent anything from being treated as an invention for the purposes of this Act only to the extent that a patent or application for a patent relates to that thing as such.

\</comment><comment>

30\. The difficulties in this area arise mostly in relation to inventions which involve the use of computers. All the Court of Appeal cases (from Merrill Lynch to Symbian) are about inventions implemented in software. The simple problem is that computer programs (as such) are excluded by s1(2)(c) (c.f. EPC Art 52(2)(c) and 52(3)) . Whether it was so clear in the past however, one thing is clear today. An invention which makes a contribution to the art which is technical in nature (to echo Kitchin J's words in Crawford) is patentable even if it is implemented entirely on a computer and even if the way it works is entirely as a result of a computer program operating on that computer. The outcome of the Symbian case proves that.

31\. [quotes Symbian]: 50. The fact that "the boundary line between what is and what is not a technical [contribution]" is imprecise (as Nicholls LJ said in Gale, and as was echoed by Aldous LJ in Fujitsu) may be attributable to three causes, which are not mutually exclusive. First, national tribunals and the Board may still be at an intermediate stage of working out and identifying the precise location of that line; secondly, the problem may be inherent and never wholly satisfactorily soluble; thirdly, there are competing views based on different philosophies (the "open source movement represents one extreme, that of companies such as the present applicant, the other). The uncertainty is well demonstrated by the elusiveness of the meaning of "technical", the change of attitude manifested in the more recent decisions of the Board, the contrasting outcomes in Vicom and Fujitsu, and indeed the possible reconsideration of the correct view of computer program patents in the United States (see Professor John Duffy: Death of Google's Patents? Patently-O Patent Law Blog, July 21st, 2008).

32\. Thus when confronted by an invention which is implemented in computer software, the mere fact that it works that way does not normally answer the question of patentability. The question is decided by considering what task it is that the program (or the programmed computer) actually performs. A computer programmed to perform a task which makes a contribution to the art which is technical in nature, is a patentable invention and may be claimed as such. Indeed (see Astron Clinica [2008] RPC 14) in those circumstances the patentee is perfectly entitled to claim the computer program itself.

33\. If the task the system performs itself falls within the excluded matter and there is no more to it, then the invention is not patentable (see Symbian paragraph 53 above). Clear examples are from the cases involving computers programmed to operate a method of doing business, such as a securities trading system or a method of setting up a company (Merrill Lynch and Macrossan). Inventions of that kind are held not to be patentable but it is important to see why. They are more than just a computer program as such. For example, they self evidently perform a task which has real world consequences. As Fox LJ said in Merrill Lynch (p569 at line 27), a data processing system operating to produce a novel technical result would normally be patentable. However that is not the end of the analysis. He continued: "however it cannot be patentable if the result itself is a prohibited item" (i.e. a method of doing business). When the result or task is itself a prohibited item, the application fails.

34\. The reasoning in Merrill Lynch means that the computer implemented invention claimed there would not have been excluded from patentability if it were not for the combined effect of two exclusions in s1(2) - <USER2> programs and (in that case) business methods. The cases in which patents have been refused almost always involve the interplay between at least two exclusions.

38\. "when the task carried out by the computer program is not itself something within the excluded categories then it is likely that the technical contribution has been revealed and thus the invention is patentable." [nb: would this not cover Folding@Home; Journeyplanner, etc?]

63\. In my judgment the correct scope of the mental act exclusion is a narrow one. Its purpose is to make sure that patent claims cannot be performed by purely mental means and that is all. The exclusion will not apply if there are appropriate non-mental limitations in the claim. [would this be as little as storing to a hard disk?]

70\. Approached on the correct, narrow basis, the mental act exclusion is irrelevant in this case. The claimed method cannot be performed by purely mental means and that is the end of the matter. Put another way, the contribution is a computer implemented method and as such cannot fall within the mental act exclusion. [OMFG. There you have it. Take ordinary, everyday mental step, call it X. For example, deciding whether to stand up or sit down, depending on whether there is a chair close behind you. Now the Patent Office cannot raise that specific objection (mental process) against any computer implemented X]

72\. [...] Although obviously some mathematics is involved, the contribution is not solely a mathematical method (on top of being a computer program) because the data on which the mathematics is performed has been specified in the claim in such a way as to represent something concrete (a drill bit design etc.). That is an important difference between the position in Gale [algo for efficiently calculating square roots] and the position here. [One Click Ordering, here we come]

\</comment><comment>-

Basically programs which do one of the other excluded things (business method, doing maths, performing mental act, or presenting information, for example) are out, and others can be in. And performing mental act can no longer count towards a second strike, because he rules out the 'wide' view that it means "anything _capable_ of being done mentally" but instead it means "anything _the patent says is done_ mentally". Add software, and you're high and dry.

This might be case law as it is laid down (or is Birss QC just limiting patentability rejections to slam-dunkable cases? i.e. "we don't know what software per se is, therefore let's only activate that rejection when we can also reject the invention on other exclusionary grounds!"), but it seems inconsistent with the letter of the law.

Is the software exclusion worth anything at all, if it's only active when another exclusion also is? That makes even less sense when you read that the listed exclusions are only 'amongst other things'.

It then further beggars belief that this patent stands even though it is an invention designed to speed up mental acts, doing mathematics and presenting mathematical information - in other words arguably just such a slam dunk.

The most horrible thing about this judgement, I find, is that it clearly allows Halliburton to sue anyone using computer simulations of drills penetrating earth when the aim is to make better drill bits. But because the patent doesn't actually say that - dismissed by Birss QC as 'poor drafting', something that is potentially entirely resident on a computer (for example, making drill bit designs that are never actually manufactured, but merely protected under a different area of intellectual proterty, Registered Designs), allows Halliburton to merely run this program day and night to generate new designs to monopolise using IP, and block anyone else from doing the same using the patent!</comment>


The $8M Heist from the Carnegie Library - <AUTHOR> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/theft-carnegie-library-books-maps-artworks-180975506/ <comment><USER2> Cultural heritage aside, it's _incredible_ that someone can rob someone to the tune of eight million dollars, and their punishment is a few years of _house arrest_ , while someone who steals candy from a bodega gets to spend years if not decades in prison.

I don't want these two dingdongs to rot in prison; I want our justice system to treat all criminals proportionally.

<comment><USER3> > while someone who steals candy from a bodega gets to spend years if not > decades in prison

it's usually because the bodega thief is waving a gun around and threatening to kill someone, while the library thief isn't.

<comment><USER4> I believe it's an example of a "3 strikes" type rule where it really was just shoplifting.

Here's a couple examples. No violence, just shoplifting:

[https://www.npr.org/2016/04/04/473004950/new-orleans-man- fac...](https://www.npr.org/2016/04/04/473004950/new-orleans-man- faces-20-years-to-life-for-candy-bar-theft)

[https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct- xpm-2000-04-26-000427...](https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct- xpm-2000-04-26-0004270254-story.html)

<comment><USER5> The 3 strikes rule is indeed a problem, but besides that the parent still has a point. A lot of the low-value robberies involve threats or violence, where as high-value art thefts pretty much never do.

<comment><USER6> What's worse, Nuisance crime or high impact crime? Do we come down on the fellow who stole a Twix bar for the n-th time or do we lock up the guy who proved that we really need million-dollar locks and alarms for the library holdings?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This was in my city. It was such a weird story, everyone was acting like there's absolutely nothing that could be done other than a slap on the wrist. I've actually been going to the Caliban bookstore for years and was there around August 2018, and was about to buy an old record but asked an employee about how the case was going, and they told me to get out and never come back. It's just the kind of thing that screams "this should be looked into a little more".

<comment><USER8> Wait, they blacklisted you permanently for simply asking about the case?

<comment><USER7> Oh no, I've been back several times.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I went to the Portland and Seattle rare book shows this past year.

Rare book shows are a wonderfully slow thrill. Attendees are almost all senior citizens and there is some awesome stuff to behold.

While all the sellers are in business to sell their books each have a love affair with their particular categories of collection.

If you enjoy reading and these fairs resume I can't recommend them enough.

In just mild exposure to the stuff I've seen, reading the sentencing for the perpetrators feels painfully modest.

Given how drug crimes are prosecuted, it seems like these guys got off with barely any impact.

It doesn't seem fair, probably because it isn't.

<comment><USER10> Thank you for the recommendation; visiting one is on my to-do list now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> These rare books are an intellectual heritage. One thing that should be top priority for libraries that have these valuable works is high fidelity digital scans of all their works.

Any location in the world can be subject to man-made or natural destruction. If these collections are digitized and placed online, at least there is a better chance of the knowledge being preserved.

<comment><USER12> Yes please. Google would do it for free.

<comment><USER13> And then show you ads when you look at them.

<comment><USER14> And then they get bored of the project and delete everything.

<comment><USER15> Each of the above generating a 200 comment HN thread

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> From a security perspective I think this results from a single person being able to act unchecked. Reminds me of the McDonald's game system cheat in which a single person controlled the entire country's game pieces unchecked.

<comment><USER17> The McDonald's system had ostensible two-person control. It failed because the second person was a woman who could not follow her male partner into the restroom.

The Carnegie Library didn't seem to even have ostensible two-person control.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> > The recipient and re-seller of the stolen books - Schulman - was not only a > member of the Antique Books Assoc he had served on its ethics and standards > committee.

Not really that shocking... really it's no different than people who regularly attend Church every Sunday yet lie and cheat the rest of the week without batting an eye!

<comment><USER19> I think people have this internal moral scale where they're okay to sin if they throw a few bucks into the collection plate. So serving on the ethics board might've made him feel okay to cheat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Sure, stealing is bad; but honestly, don't underpay the person in charge of something so valuable! Besides that, this sounds like extreme negligence on behalf of the library.

<comment><USER15> Pay them enough to put 4 kids through private school?

<comment><USER20> For someone to be solely responsible for such an invaluable collection? That doesn't sound outrageous at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I feel bad, but then I remember that Aaron Swartz (created RSS, Markdown, and co-founded Reddit) committed suicide after federal charges would have put him in prison for life for stealing public grant-funded research papers from JSTOR at MIT.

I truly do not care about library theft at this point. Steal it all. There's nothing in their possession more important than a life, especially someone like Aaron, who had done so much good with his before he had even turned 18.

<comment><USER22> It is not, at all, the same kind of thief or library.

Old books are unique pieces and having them in library make them accesible to the largest number (digitalization being the obvious next step). Stealing them and selling them to private collectors makes them inacessible to the public.

Academic papers are accesible as pdf provided by editors, they can trivially be copied and shared without making the originals less accesible. Pirating them makes them more accesible and does not hurt the public (at least this is my belief, editors hold a different position).

Equating libraries that provide a public service with editors that restrict access to knowledge hurts more than it helps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Reminds me of the director of the royal coin cabinet in Stockholm, Sweden. He sold coins and medals from the museum for a value of 20 million sek (~$2m) through a coin collector/trader from 1997 until a few years ago. He could only be sentenced for selling 10% of those coin because of lack of evidence.

[https://coinsweekly.com/theft-at-the-stockholm-royal-coin- ca...](https://coinsweekly.com/theft-at-the-stockholm-royal-coin-cabinet/)

</comment><comment><USER24> American Animals is a movie of a similar situation (if not the same one)</comment>


Revert "Implement Caddy-Sponsors HTTP Response Header" - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mholt/caddy/commit/b6e10e3cb22990eaa0d9ff28256054a25efd25be <comment><USER2> Kinda felt this was inevitable, but man the outrage over it was ridiculous.

Programmers can be such children sometimes. One moment we hate binaries, the next we love them. One moment compiling from source is a badge of honor, the next it's too big of a hassle. An OSS project has to resort to a somewhat- expensive license and 30 bytes of ad header to keep the lights on, yet nobody clamors to donate. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

</comment><comment><USER3> Does this mean the binaries also won't have the headers (or just the source?).

IMO, Caddy project should simply stop providing binaries for free. Those who want to provide this as a community service may do so for others. This is generally how it is for most of the software. Binaries and packages are maintained by distributions and not upstream authors..</comment>


Show HN: Boreal – A New iOS Client for Hacker News - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@boreal/introducing-boreal-5fc6066d86db?source=most-recommended-published_user <comment><USER2> Looks really clean and nice. Great stuff.

How do you plan to monetize it? It says "in app purchases" but couldn't spot any paid-for options.

A few small comments:

* The login option is slightly confusing, because it has a big Boreal on top. Am I logging in / creating an account for Boreal or HN ?

* On the announcement blog post you have a typo "So, what do you l[o]ose trying it?", and I think you should anyway say "What do you have to lose by trying it?" (I'm not a native English speaker though).

* I wish there was a way to jump straight into the comments. It's not uncommon for me (and I believe others) to start off by reading the comments, and only then the article.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback! We already implemented a new way for navigating into comments in the next version. The next version will be a big update with a ton of new features and is coming next week!

<comment><USER3> I still can't figure out how to get to comments at all. What am I missing?

<comment><AUTHOR> Open a post and touch the button located at the top right corner. It will open the possible actions, there is one which says "comments"

<comment><USER3> Ah I see, I had to have it in "open in Boreal browser" I guess -- originally had it in Safari, then in the in-app viewer, and didn't see that available. Ok.

Is there a way to up/downvote comments?

I've been looking for a new iOS HN app, and I do like the design of this, might just need some getting used to and a couple of minor additions. Great job!

<comment><AUTHOR> Upvoting and downvoting comments are coming in a future version.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My take:

* App performance / design is phenomenal. Great job.

* Show comments/point counts on the stories in the list views

You have an interesting monetization model... Personally, I would get rid of all the tiers and just have your default free + 3.99 full unlock. I don't imagine many people reading hackernews will fall in between and want to pay money while still seeing ads. Your pricing is fine though I think for the full version.

<comment><USER5> Thanks Ben! Really appreciate it :)

We are currently thinking about how to improve the experience getting into comments, on the 1.1 version (coming in a few days) we will add a quick access to comments, directly from the feed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The app looks great and you guys really have a thing for good designs. I tried out your other app "Stocky" and wanted to give you s quick feedback. It probably has the best welcome screen I've ever seen. The download size with one MB is also really impressive (the HN app has 20, for the record). Here are a few things about the stocky app though:

\- the dollar sign is not visisble for the apple stock. \- the +x.xx% is not aligned nicely (bit.ly/1IXTayl)

Back to the HN App. Could you add a way to customize the font size for the comments? The font is really small and I haven't figured out a way to change it. Also, I'd like to see a "content-based-view" as it is implemented in this app [https://appsto.re/us/7uRIQ.i](https://appsto.re/us/7uRIQ.i) you should also allow use, if you add this function, to have the content-focused view as the default one.

Otherwise, great job you too!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys! I am Juan Chomali, This is the new client I have been working on with Nestor Palao for the last months. I hope you like it and if you have any feedback please let us know at @getBoreal in twitter or drop as some lines at email@example.com. Have a great day!

<comment><USER7> Newbie here. Downloaded your app. I like a lot the design and layout.

<comment><USER8> Thanks Marvel! Really appreciated your love, those comments encourage us to continue working :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> THAAAANK YOU GUYS! Really appreciate all your kindly words and feedback. We are working hard to improve as much as we can the experience using Boreal, new update coming in a few days with all what your requested: upvotes number from the main feed, quick access to comments from the main feed, quick upvoting for posts from the main feed, switch to auto-delete posts viewed and only show them in the "Viewed" tab, collapse comments, LogIn improvements, commenting and posting bug corrected, and much more things coming.

Btw, if you want and you think Boreal deserves it, support us by buying our "Black Hat Hacker Plan" that lets you read unlimited news (simply go to Settings > Store > Boreal Store).

Enjoy! :)

</comment><comment><USER9> This app is great! I love the design, I just have a few little problems:

\- Comments don't appear to be nested beyond the first level \- Clicking on the sign up page brought me to HN's site, but it didn't bring me to their sign up page \- In the comments view, the back button at the top left appeared to be informative text instead of a back button to me... What if you added an arrow before the text ("<") like Apple does in many of their apps (e.g. the settings app)

But I love the way the app looks overall and I'm glad I've found an awesome HN reader app!

Oh and P.S. the app gave me an error when trying to post this - "There was an error while trying tu publish your comment. Please try again."

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for that. I will take a look on commenting and include the back button icon too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Looks pretty good! Initial complaints:

\- Text is way too small. Needs to be configurable.

\- Not sure I like this font as a body text font, either. Can you make this an option?

\- To get from the article view to the comments requires two clicks. Should only be one click.

\- Byline text is hard to read, needs more contrast.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback. We are including some of this in our next version. So stay tuned!

<comment><USER10> Cool. Forgot one: Collapsing of comments. The client you need to beat, really, is MiniHack [1].

[1] [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/minihack-for-hacker-news- sim...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/minihack-for-hacker-news- simple/id631108846?mt=8)

<comment><USER5> Sure! Thanks for your feedback btw.

In the next version (1.1) coming in about a week we will include:

-Clear upvotes and comments number from the main feed -Quick access to comments from the main feed -Quick upvoting for posts from the main feed -Switch to auto-delete posts viewed and only show them in the "Viewed" tab -Collapse comments -LogIn improvements -Commenting and posting bug corrected -Follow users to receive push notifications when they post something

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The app looks great, though have a few comments:

* It doesn't _feel_ like HackersNews. I think you should follow some of the elements from the web app (Orange colour, HN logo etc)

* I wasn't comfortable providing login credentials. How are you handling login / storing my details?

* I'd like to see more posts per page. Feels harder to scan read the posts than on the current HN site

* Filter in top right looks like a location / near me icon. Didn't expect it to display filter options

* How do I see my profile? I'm logged in, but no indication that I am

* Having to click on comments to see 'no comments' feels odd

* The number of upvotes / comments per post is important, feels very buried (couldn't find upvotes)

<comment><USER5> Hey, thanks for your attention and feedback :)

In the next version (1.1) coming in about a week we are going to include: -Clear upvotes and comments number from the main feed -Quick access to comments from the main feed -Quick upvoting for posts from the main feed -Switch to auto-delete posts viewed and only show them in the "Viewed" tab -Collapse comments -LogIn improvements -Commenting and posting bug corrected -Follow users to receive push notifications when they post something

Version 1.2 (some more weeks): -Dynamic text: adjust text size as you want -Different fonts: we will add in addition to the current Avenir, Open Sans, Proxima Nova and Helvetica Neue

Stay tuned for more updates! As we said, Boreal is a client build from users FOR users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm enjoying the app immensely.

Are you guys planning at implementing dark/night mode at some point? One of the thing that makes MiniHack (the other iOS HN client) a joy to use especially later on in the day is that the screen automagically turn dark according to the display brightness. May I suggest that instead of going with black background, use the grey similar to the one in Reeder:

[http://i.imgur.com/NvbDpHY.png](http://i.imgur.com/NvbDpHY.png)

And another thing- I can't seem to be able to post my comment from within the app. If this comment is posted it's because I've published it via the website:

<comment><USER5> Thanks mate! Really appreciate your words :)

We will be adding some features in the next updates, for example tomorrow the v.1.1 will be out with a quick access to comments and upvotes from the main feed and a feature that lets you follow users in order to track their activity.

For the v.1.2 (out in one or two weeks) we are planning to add night mode (as you said), 1password integrations, collapse comments and some other fixers, you, users, requested. We are here to build together the best experience.

Btw, currently to access comments, until the new update, you have to open a post, and in the NavBar (at the right side) you have a icon that opens our actions menu > comments > reply and post new comments

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> So. I immediately upgraded to the Black Hat plan (no ads forever) and would say you are charging way too little or should not use in app purchase.

We HN users are a dedicated base of people. While you need data to decide this, I think you will find that most people will pay more than $3.99 for no ads. I think most of us are happy to pay for a quality product.

Outside that, I really hope that this will become my go-to for hacker news :)

Caveat: for some reason I cannot post a comment from the client but the error is not verbose. It also says "tu " instead of "to". Just a note.

<comment><AUTHOR> We are trying to solve this issue. Thanks for your feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hooray guys!

We've just sent our 1.1 version with a big update that includes a bug fixes and some great improvements like a quicker access to comments and the number of votes from the main feed, the ability to upvote and downvote comments. Also, we added a feature you will love, with Boreal, now, you can follow users in order to track their usage and receive a push notification each time they post something.

We want to continue improving the app so if you have any feedback please let us know in @GetBoreal or in email@example.com.

Enjoy! -the Boreal team <3

</comment><comment><USER14> Hey Guys,

Very much a newbie here (first comment in fact!) and am trying to break into iOS App development myself so it's nice to see you guys doing well!

Love the app, great design. My only "gripe" if you can call it that is how slow some of the animations are. For example the view sliding up from the bottom after tapping the action button is smooth but (to me at least) feels like it's lagging somewhat.

Either way looking forward to the next update!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback. We are going to make the animations a bit faster.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Very nice!

I for one welcome the lack of HN colours, although the orange might look nice as a secondary/accent colour used sparingly. The grey is lovely.

I'll keep using the app and look forward to the update coming shortly.

Well done.

PS. There's a typo on the error posting modal dialogue box - says "tu" rather than "to". (There was an error trying _tu_ publish your comment....)

I've been getting this error a lot, so I went to the web site to post this.

</comment><comment><USER16> Nice work guys. I really like the UI. Till now I was using - [https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/hacker-news- yc/id713733435?m...](https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/hacker-news- yc/id713733435?mt=8) for using Hacker News on my iPhone.

This too is a great application for using HN, however its design is more orthodox.

Great Work :)

<comment><USER17> Have you tried MiniHack? I think it will provide a better comparison.

<comment><USER18> I agree, MiniHack is the cleary the top iOS client for HN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for all your feedback. We just released a new version that includes a lot of improvements and some new features that I am sure you will love.

\+ Tap and hold a post to upvote.

\+ Dynamic text support.

\+ Follow users to receive a notification when they submit a story.

\+ Access to comments from the feed.

\+ Swipe comments to vote.

\+ UI improvements.

\+ Bug fixes.

</comment><comment><USER19> This is great! It's rather suprising why an all-round HN app app isn't available in the App Store.

What does the up arrow in the top right of comments section supposed to do?

P.S. I also got the same error as jamescostian when trying to comment from the app.

<comment><AUTHOR> The button is to uproot the post. In the next version we will add a button to uproot directly from the feed

<comment><AUTHOR> upvote _

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Nicely done. Earlier this year I launched a Mac HN client because i wanted a better desktop client experience [http://mackernews.com](http://mackernews.com) Will check out your app :)

<comment><USER21> I was interested in something like that. How is going the app? can you share some insight ?

<comment><USER20> its going ok, not flying off the shelves but seems to be working well and ppl that have bought it seem to like it :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Good design! And great work!

I wish I could see the number of votes a post got on the main screen though.. I like the filtering, but sometimes I just want to look at the numbers and decide for myself

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, we are including that in the next version.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why does the bottom share button not bring up the full share menu? Also, for share by email please auto populate the subject line. Other than that it looks pretty good so far.

<comment><USER5> Sure, thanks for your feedback, we will add this in the next update (1.1 coming in about a week)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Is there a collection of all the different HN clients out there? A HN example seems to have become as common as a hello world example among javascript frontend libs.

</comment><comment><USER25> iOS 8 only if that matters to anyone. I had apparently never updated this iphone ( not my main phone ) and never noticed until now, so thanks for the reminder Juan!

<comment><USER4> You didn't notice you were a full iOS version behind? :D

<comment><USER5> Hahaha, now, you have a (hope big) reason to upgrade your iPhone's OS version :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This looks really nice. It'd be cool if you added the 1Password extension to make it easier to log into HN!

<comment><USER5> Thanks! Sure, we will include 1Password support for login into the next version coming in about a week :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Is there any way to mark articles as read so that they don't occupy the screen any more?

<comment><USER5> No, but each article you read automatically is archived in "Viewed" section for an easy access.

Btw, thanks by your feedback. We will add a switch in the 1.1 version (coming in a few days) to auto-delete the viewed posts from your main feed and archive them in your viewed tab only :)

<comment><USER27> That'd be great! Looking forward to it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I really like minihack as an iOS HN client. It's very polished.

</comment><comment><USER29> Looks like the Login does not work, or only for me?

<comment><USER5> Yeah, bug reported, some users are experiencing problems with it. We've just fixed this and will be corrected in the next update coming in a few hours (hopefully no more than one day)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is really cool, I love its design!

<comment><USER5> Thanks bro! As always working hard to provide the best experience and details

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Why "Boreal"?

<comment><USER5> why not? The decision was taken in relation to our colour palette and the look and feel of the login (there is a beautiful video transition of Ibiza by night)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Simple and Nice

<comment><USER5> Thanks man!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> We met Juan when he came through SF a few weeks ago and showed us this app. It's impressive! For a couple of high-school students, it's damned impressive.

Users flagged this story, presumably because some of the comments look suspiciously like astroturfing. I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt and override that in this case, but guys, you need to realize that you can't promote your stuff on HN that way. Astroturfing accounts get banned, and usually we'll ban the submitters' accounts and the site as well. Even if we don't do that, HN users—who have a nose for this sort of thing and really don't like it—will react negatively to your post, and that's definitely the opposite of what you want.

I have a feeling it was just your friends trying to give you a boost, which is very nice of them, but please tell them that HN is the sort of place where that doesn't go over well. Instead, learn to let your fine work speak for itself.</comment>


Excellent analysis of Assange's Wikileaks motivations (from the horse's mouth) - <AUTHOR> http://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/julian-assange-and-the-computer-conspiracy-"to-destroy-this-invisible-government" <comment><USER2> It's a pretty good analysis, and Assange seems to have put a lot of thought into it. However, he's making an assumption that I think is unfounded, which is treating the concentration of political power as monolithic. If you assume that an organization is concerned about the power of the organization, then I think he's correct in his logic that authoritarianism leads to conspiracy and communication is important to having power. However, if you assume that most members of an organization are concerned with personal power rather than the power of the organization, then the importance of communication goes down sharply, as the only coordination is opportunistic. A bureaucracy, as opposed to a dictatorship, is quite content without having goals, coordination, or communication[1], and can expand its authority based entirely on the mission creep of lower-level individuals within it.

How valuable the disruption of communication is in fighting a "regime" depends on how you model that regime. And, of course, in practice you will find that reality is some bizarre chimera of any group of models. My intuition is that Congress (plus lobbyists) act more like a decentralized bureaucracy, executive administrations act more like dictatorships that fight against each other for territory, and that the closest things we find to Assange's "banal conspiracies" are small, ad-hoc, opportunistic alignment of objectives, much smaller, less powerful, and less stable than the government as a whole.

[1] In fact, lack of coordination could help a bureaucracy grow by fostering redundancy.

<comment><USER3> That's a really interesting question. Can it be that the perceived "neo-con" or "Liberal" machines are really emergent behavior based solely (or predominantly) on independent, opportunistic agents?

I don't know the answer to that, but it's interesting to ponder.

<comment><USER4> That's one thing I think is worth rescuing from classical Marxism (ignoring the political prescriptions that the Marxists added on top). The "historical materialist" view that history is largely emergent behavior of structural elements like economic relations, not the result of either "great men" or conscious conspiracies, or some preordained macro-scale order, is still pretty relevant imo.

(It's actually out of favor in contemporary Marxist thought, oddly enough, which has gone more in the direction of analyzing the role of culture, hegemony, etc., following Gramsci. Perhaps some non-Marxists will have to revive the historical-materialist approach. Jared Diamond's work is sort of in that direction.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> tl;dr version (and it is quite long). I've copied out what I think are the key bits, the following is all quoted:

He begins by positing that conspiracy and authoritarianism go hand in hand, arguing that since authoritarianism produces resistance to itself -- to the extent that its authoritarianism becomes generally known -- it can only continue to exist and function by preventing its intentions (the authorship of its authority?) from being generally known. It inevitably becomes, he argues, a conspiracy ...

the most effective way to attack this kind of organization would be to make "leaks" a fundamental part of the conspiracy's information environment. Which is why the point is not that particular leaks are specifically effective. Wikileaks does not leak something like the _Collateral Murder_ video as a way of putting an end to that particular military tactic; that would be to target a specific leg of the hydra even as it grows two more. Instead, the idea is that increasing the porousness of the conspiracy's information system will impede its functioning, that the conspiracy will turn against itself in self- defense, clamping down on its own information flows in ways that will then impede its own cognitive function. You destroy the conspiracy, in other words, by making it so paranoid of itself that it can no longer conspire ...

The leak, in other words, is only the catalyst for the desired counter- overreaction; Wikileaks wants to provoke the conspiracy into turning off its own brain in response to the threat. As it tries to plug its own holes and find the leakers, he reasons, its component elements will de-synchronize from and turn against each other, de-link from the central processing network, and come undone.

... he quotes Theodore Roosevelt's words from his 1912 Progressive party presidential platform as the epigraph to the first essay; Roosevelt realized a hundred years ago that "Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people," and it was true, then too, that "To destroy this invisible government, to befoul this unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of statesmanship."

<comment><USER5> I don't want to get into a detailed analysis of the piece -- I only had time to skim it.

But am I to understand that I (and the rest of the American people) have paid tens of billions of dollars, had multiple elections, politically demonstrated and pleaded to Congressmen, to have a State Department that Assange doesn't feel should keep secrets, so he dumps the embassy cables?

If a single actor can take it on himself to do all of that, then why am I wasting my time choosing who to vote for, paying taxes, and debating with my fellow citizens what the correct policy on "X" might be? Seems like I should just take it on myself -- after careful analysis of course -- that Assange is a danger to my representative form of government and I should go shoot him (I mean this completely rhetorically, by the way. I in no way support violence against anybody)

The problem here is believing your own bullshit, as they say on the streets. Or put nicer, coming up with a line of reasoning that you (and perhaps others) deem to be the "correct" one, and then imposing it on the rest of us against our will.

Democracies don't work by doing the right or correct thing. They work by the consent of the governed. If Assange takes away my illusion of having some say in the governing of my state, then he's effectively attacking the social contract.

I just can't see how this plays out very well.

<comment><USER6> "Democracies don't work by doing the right or correct thing. They work by the consent of the governed."

The question is "does our government listen to its people anymore, regardless of elections"?

The bank bailouts were opposed by the majority of the population crossing party lines. I wouldn't be surprised if the new TSA procedures are equally as hated. I can go on about other subjects such as FISA, ACTA, torture, Iraq & Afghanistan occupation.

Are we now living in a more subtle version of Singapore or China?

<comment><USER5> Why the generalizing?

The question you pose is not something that you can prove one way or another. It's up to each citizen to make that decision for themselves. As broken as it all is, a minority of people can't rise up and take away the consent of the governed by the majority, no matter how good their logic or noble their cause. It doesn't work like that. It's not a mathematical proof. Systems of people are not like system of network nodes. Yes, there are similarities, but there are very important differences too.

Europe already went down this road in the prelude to WWI. It didn't work out so well. I'm not opposed to going over all of this again, but these things have already been discussed and argued by people far wiser than us. If I understand what folks are saying, it's not like Assange has come up with some unique insight that somehow is going to make things better. This is just anarchism by another name.

<comment><USER6> I wasn't that general. I did cite at least two cases where the majority of the governed wanted something other than what our government has provided us. Besides I don't see this toppling our representative democracy. If anything it'll just help keep our representatives a bit more honest and a bit more cautious.

My point is that many people already see the social contract as broken.

<comment><USER5> I screwed that up, so let me restate: why are you making a general assessment of the state of the social contract and then taking action which effects me because of your analysis?

I happen to agree with you that things suck. But I disagree with leaks of State Dept and tactical military intelligence. Others think things are great but don't mind the leaks. Still others are apathetic and encourage the leaks. Out of a dozen people, you'll find a dozen different opinions.

We all -- each citizen -- have a unique relationship with our government. Who are you or anybody else to make a decision like that that effects billions of dollars spent and tens of thousands of lives? I didn't elect Assange. He doesn't represent me. And I have no recourse to remove him from his post if I feel he is acting maliciously or incompetently.

You see, it's not enough to make the argument that things suck so much that _anything_ would be better. It doesn't work that way. That's just waving your arms around in anger and exasperation. I also believe we need to get rid of 99.99% of the secrecy we have. But there is still a role for government and secrecy. Some random person doesn't have the right to "fix" what he thinks is broken -- because if he can do that, then we all can. And at that point we might as well just go out in the streets with guns to get our way.

This is insanity. Well thought-out, for a good cause, well-intentioned, but fundamentally broken. This is like the dozenth time groups of people have been down this road. It doesn't end well -- even if the state is "fixed".

It's critically important to separate your opinion of the state of things from the reasons and rules that each individual can take to make a difference.

Take the Declaration of Independence. In it, Jefferson doesn't make the case that monarchical rule is broken and therefore we must act militarily -- far from it. He respects the previous state of things but then makes a detailed argument as to how the king broke the social contract with the colonies, thereby releasing governance of the states back to the "natural legislature" of the people. It's a very long list of things we did to try to make things work and how they didn't work out. If you want a revolution, that's the place to go to start understanding what arguments work and what arguments don't work. Move from there to "Letters from a Birmingham Jail". But don't go down the Marx route where you do this huge amount of clever reasoning and then wreak havoc on the rest of us because of what you've proven. That's not so good.

<comment><USER6> "Who are you or anybody else to make a decision like that that effects billions of dollars spent and tens of thousands of lives? I didn't elect Assange. He doesn't represent me. And I have no recourse to remove him from his post if I feel he is acting maliciously or incompetently."

This has already been happening for years with our 4th branch of government, our very own government agencies. They aren't elected. How do we know that they are complying with the branches that we elected?

"Some random person doesn't have the right to "fix" what he thinks is broken -- because if he can do that, then we all can. And at that point we might as well just go out in the streets with guns to get our way."

I don't understand why you are comparing Wikileaks to an armed insurgency. Wikileaks is only doing what the mainstream media either won't or can no longer perform because of their new owners. Wikileaks is not an armed and violent insurgency. It isn't usurping anyone's power if they are acting within the law or within what they were elected to do. It is only releasing information that should be known to the public.

Our government is already supposed to make freely available a lot of information that it is still withholding:

<http://www.aclu.org/accountability/released.html>

What is an alternative to Wikileaks? We've already tried voting, and I'm not keen on supporting revolution. I'm just advocating transparency to help preserve our current government, albeit just making it a little more honest and a little less crazy.

Just saw this the other day on The Onion's competitor: <http://toofar.tv/blog/?p=7>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Any political system with secrecy evolves into authoritarianism. Why shouldn't it? Secrecy ensures politicians/bureaucrats won't be accountable.

When did we start thinking that we can have democracy and freedom without accountability?

It isn't about conspiracy theories. It's just common sense that some people will abuse their power if they can't be held accountable.

<comment><USER8> Agreed, mostly. But without SOME secrecy, a government can't function.

Imagine if the US became 100% transparent. You could listen to the president's phone calls, watch military strategy in real time, etc. Unless the government's enemies (its proper ones - criminals, opposing armies, etc) were likewise transparent, which they wouldn't be, Uncle Sam would basically be doomed to be beaten by them. Like if only one poker player had to show his cards in a game - he'd lose.

Just saying there are limits to the good that transparency can do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Assange is poking at the illusion of democracy and it makes people damn uncomfortable as far as I can see. I think most people know that they are ruled by rulers and that the idea of the state as benefactor is dead, but to admit it is another thing for most. They will fight very hard to retain the comfort of the illusion. And the state will act to retain it also, by any means necessary.

</comment><comment><USER10> > _These leaks are not specifically about the war(s) at all, and most seem to > simply be a broad swath of the everyday normal secrets that a security state > keeps from all but its most trusted hundreds of thousands of people who have > the right clearance. Which is the point: Assange is completely right that > our government has conspiratorial functions. What else would you call the > fact that a small percentage of our governing class governs and acts in our > name according to information which is freely shared amongst them but which > cannot be shared amongst their constituency? And we all probably knew that > this was more or less the case; anyone who was surprised that our embassies > are doing dirty, secretive, and disingenuous political work as a matter of > course is naïve. But Assange is not trying to produce a journalistic scandal > which will then provoke red-faced government reforms or something, precisely > because no one is all that scandalized by such things any more. Instead, he > is trying to strangle the links that make the conspiracy possible, to expose > the necessary porousness of the American state's conspiratorial network in > hopes that the security state will then try to shrink its computational > network in response, thereby making itself dumber and slower and smaller._

A long quote, yes, but I could not think of a way to shorten it without severely hindering its meaning.

This is a perfectly articulated description of how I initially felt about cable release. Wikileaks (and necessarily, at this point, Assange) is not trying to reveal a huge scandal, to embarrass or to destroy connections. If one or more of those things happen then so be it. The goal is to reveal, to expose the standard type and content of information that is traded like currency amongst the few who govern the very many.

The leak is an attempt at provoking forced honesty; if Wikileaks exposes a vast amount of cables enough times, the veil and shroud of secrecy that governments use as a personal cloak will continue to shrink and shrivel until it is non-functional. And voila! Now governments can no longer act in complete isolation from its people and governments such as that of the United States, which promise to be of and for the people, are forced to live up to that promise, out in the open. If you force the government into that situation harshly and fully enough, eventually it has no choice but to act that way. And finally it can be held _accountable_ for its actions, positive or negative.

In short, the goal with all of these leaks is first and foremost to poke and prod through the secrecy and conspiracy until there is a large enough hole for the public to be able to view what its own government is doing on its behalf. Whether or not you feel that this is morally or ethically correct is up to you; this is just my take on the rationale.

</comment><comment><USER11> As a side note, can we go easy on the appeals to emotion in headlines on Hacker News?

Yes, this article is good; yes, some robots are incredible; as far as titles go though, it's a distasteful use of rhetoric.

<comment><AUTHOR> For what it's worth, I completely agree with your sentiment, and I felt a pang of regret when I reviewed my submission later. If I could rewrite the title now, I would call it "In-depth, insightful" rather than "Excellent".

<comment><USER12> Even those are just opinionated adjectives designed to get noticed and voted.

<comment><AUTHOR> They are designed to be descriptive and informative (hrmph!). I applaud the article I submitted. Let there be no doubt.

<comment><USER13> It's a great article. And your use of 'excellent' was warranted, because the article is, well, excellent.

Even folks who don't agree with it have to admit that it frames the issue (as Assange sees it) with genuine clarity. In all the hype surrounding Wikileaks, this was the first mention I'd seen of what Assange actually said about his intentions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> With respect to the potential for popular opposition to government policy, I think he drastically overestimates the impact of exposure and drastically underestimates a "conspiracy"'s need for secrecy. Perhaps if he paid more attention to domestic U.S. politics, he would see that the standard response to revelations like this is boredom and disinterest. Did Abu Ghraib morally discredit the Iraq war with U.S. voters? No, the ones who still supported the war found it easy to shrug off an isolated incident caused by bad apples. Did it shock any Iraq War supporters to discover that the guys who pushed the Iraq War in 2002 and 2003 had already been looking for ways to sell another war against Saddam Hussein for almost a decade before to 9/11, and that their motivations had nothing to do with terrorism? No, people who had listened to the arguments and made up their minds to support the war did not care about the motivations of the obscure policy wonks advising politicians in Washington.

Anyone expecting the public to be shocked and outraged by a revelation ought to temper their hopes by reminding themselves how much publicly available information they find extremely shocking, and how different the typical voter's response to that information is.

<comment><USER15> He's not aiming to change the behaviour of the people, he's aiming to change the behaviour of the policy wonks. He's aiming to make them either more open, and therefore far less exclusive. Or he's aiming to have their communications be much more difficult to achieve.

Either way, the power of the state over the people is lessened. It doesn't matter that no-one cares about the contents, it only matters that the state cares that people don't see the contents.

This is a very different motivation than journalists have.

<comment><USER16> _Either way, the power of the state over the people is lessened. It doesn't matter that no-one cares about the contents, it only matters that the state cares that people don't see the contents._

I'm not sure that even matters. If you look back at the great conspiracies of history, they haven't been "hidden" by the conspirators at all. Could Wikileaks have stopped Hitler, who actually _published a book_ explaining his views and telegraphing his intentions? So did Lenin and Mao, and the future slaves of their totalitarian states did nothing but nod their assent. The signatories to the PNAC all but told us to expect a "new Pearl Harbor," but, heck, that's just tinfoil-hat territory, there.

I'm pessimistic about the benefits of Wikileaks' activities simply because history has shown, again and again, that nobody cares about conspiracies except the conspirators. The free flow of information might effect positive change eventually, but it'll have to wait until next Tuesday night, after _American Idol_.

<comment><USER17> _I'm pessimistic about the benefits of Wikileaks' activities simply because history has shown, again and again, that nobody cares about conspiracies except the conspirators._

Then the true audience for leaks is the conspirators, they'll feed off their own paranoia. Apparently, the watchers watch themselves, but even they have doubts about the trustworthiness of the watchers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> As a citizen I like to remain ignorant to the dealings done on my behalf. I think it's sinful for Julian, or anyone else to seek information that isn't blessed by the State - and anyone seeking knowledge that is not sanctified by my Representatives is unacceptable. Now I'm going to stick my head in the sand because I hate learning about facts.

<comment><USER14> Replace "citizen" with "president" and you've stated actual U.S. policy (as represented in movies and novels, anyway.) The Iranian nuclear scientists who were assassinated on their way to work recently -- if we (the U.S.) killed them, Obama will never know about it. If, on the other hand, some other country did it without our help, the CIA might share that information with him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The question I have (and I will start the linked pdf tonight) is if unjust systems are nonlinearly hit vs. just systems in the event of a leak. What happens if the new communication or propaganda tools start a copy cat organization to "leak" their own agenda.

It might work both ways: complete openness and complete falseness.

<comment><USER20> it's a great question. my intuition is yes at the first level: control of information is a key technique for many powerful unjust systems. it's a good point though that the same kind of power could also make unjust systems better at "false flag" attacks. certainly food for thought.

<comment><USER21> That would take a lot of organization. Also, what if their operations were leaked invalidating their previous lies?

<comment><USER20> agreed it would take a lot of organization. this is the conspiracy we're talking about though, they're good at stuff like that!

> what if their operations were leaked invalidating their previous lies?

their goal with this strategy is to devalue leaked information, so this would potentially work to their advantage moving forward. "you can't trust any of this leaked data. don't you know there's a secret bipartisan private/public conspiracy spending $5B a year to corrupt the data?"

at some point it gets complex enough that everybody's head explodes

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> If anyone is interested here is the full PDF that is quoted throughout this article dubbed "State and Terrorist Conspiracies":

<http://cryptome.org/0002/ja-conspiracies.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm interpreting this article to say Assange's goal is to decrease the effectiveness of the conspiracy (eg, US government function) by killing off information flows within the conspiracy.

If that is so, then I really fear a world with Assange as the head of Wikileaks.

One of the major reasons why the government failed to prevent the 9/11 plot was because nobody had all the information in one place so that they could connect the dots. The 9/11 Commission recommended that different parts of the government increase the amount of information they share with each other. (Indeed, the State Department posting certain cables onto SIPRNET that was the source of this leak was part of the response to that recommendation.)

If Assange's actions induce a return to the world of stovepiping, then the future might not be so rosy.

Then I guess my only question is why does he want a world like this? Will society be better off in this kind of world?

</comment><comment><USER24> I have not followed all the previous Wikileaks, but I definitely disagree with this latest one.

I don't see what purpose is served by releasing internals memos about what some diplomat located in Germany thinks about certain German politicians.

There's nothing evil in having a negative opinion about German politicians and communicating it to your boss. The People certainly don't need to know such micro level details. OTOH it does harm your diplomatic relations.

-

This is kinda like somebody hacking your Gmail account and releasing all your work emails to your startup's investors, because, after all, they're your investors, they deserve to know what's going on?

</comment><comment><USER25> Someone in another thread put it best: when did I vote for Julian Assange? Who is he accountable to? Where are _his_ secrets?

</comment><comment><USER26> I'd say it's a mistake to either reduce Wikileaks to Assange or reduce the leak-dynamic to Wikileaks. Technology has made leaking very easy. Someone is going to do it.

There are many justifications you could come up with, someone will use one of them.

Leaking, for example, seems inherently easier than file sharing and that hasn't stopped for a while now.

</comment><comment><USER27> As Michael Caine said in <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Knight_%28film%29>

"Some people would enjoy seeing the world burn"

</comment><comment><USER28> funny how for years all that [USA being an authoritarian conspiracy] was even promoted as the "correct" action in sci action movies.

how many times the hero agrees not to disclose some alien invasion or something as to not create mass panic and help the government act in the dark and so saves the day?</comment>